


tyger! tyger! burning bright

by ryanreynolds



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Buzzfeed Unsolved Fusion, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst with a Happy Ending, House Fires, Limbo, M/M, Major Character Deaths Before Story Start, Moving On, Past Period-Typical Homophobia, between shane and ryan, this sounds so angsty but there's some comedy and banter too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-25 16:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21359245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: They put on the Great British Bake Off, in a house in Donny, in England, that’s maybe inhabited by two ghosts, two lovers, stuck in the house where they used to have a life, so far away from the time they were born in.// A Buzzfeed Unsolved AU in which Harry and Louis died in a fire in the late 1800's, but death isn't the end.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 139
Collections: HL TV SHOW FIC FEST 2019





	tyger! tyger! burning bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [louisnights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/louisnights/gifts).

> Thank you so much for clicking, I hope you'll enjoy the ride!
> 
> Before we begin, I just need to thank my amazing friends for having been there for me, while I stress-wrote this last minute. Thank you to Samu and Tina, my dream team always there to support me and make fun of me: best of both worlds. I love you both so much!
> 
> Thank you to Sonny for organizing this event! It's been so much fun! I hope you'll love the story, as much as I did writing it

_He wakes up to the sunrise, to an empty bed, and cold sheets. He wakes up to his home, his life, his world burning, burning, burning, burning. It’s not like he’s never felt afraid before, but he doesn’t think he’s ever experienced real and true fear. Not like this. Never like this._

_He wakes up, still lost in dreams for moment, and then everything goes to hell._

_He wakes up for the last time._

“So, the house we’re gonna be looking at this time is a quite interesting one. Located in Doncaster, England-”

”Where the fuck is Doncaster?”

“England, I literally just said that. Just let me finish talking before you interrupt me, okay?”

“Anyway, as I said. Our house is located in Doncaster, England. Northern England, for anyone who doesn’t know anything about English geography save for they have a city called London like my esteemed, or the childhood town of Tan France from Queer Eye-”

”Ohh yeah, I know where that is.”

“You really interrupted me again, just to tell me that? You’re kidding me, right? Let me finish talking, and you can tell me all about how you’re basing your geography knowledge on stars from reality shows.”

”At least it’s a good reality show.”

“Couldn’t agree more, now can we talk about our haunted house in Doncaster?”

”Think Queer Eye’s more exciting, but by all means. Tell me about the English ghosts in Tan Franceville.”

“The house in Doncaster has burned down twice times since it was built in 1822. It burned down two years after it’d been built, which doesn’t really portray the English carpenters in a very good light, but I’m sure they’ve gotten better since the early 19th century. It was rebuilt, no one got hurt, everything is fine, until the year 1879. At some point from 1822 to 1879, there was built a second storage, and the ground floor was made into a bakery.”

”A bakery?”

“A bakery, the good people of Doncaster need their morning bread just as much as everyone else in the world. Now, 1879. There weren’t any registers back then of who owned the house, but the bakery was named _Styles’ Bakery_, so for good reason, the owners had to be named Styles unless they just randomly decided to throw another name up there for the kicks.”

”I do live for the idea of some Victorian dude wanting to destroy his competition’s reputation by naming an awful bakery after them.”

“Well, according to records, however good his bread may have tasted, he wasn’t very good at attending the oven. In 1879, early morning on October 31st, seemingly out of nowhere, the entire ground floor caught fire.”

”It’s like I always say. Don’t bake bread on Halloween, don’t do it.”

“Literally when have you ever said that?”

”Right now.”

“You’re such a dick, you know? Show some respect for the dead.”

”Sorry, sorry. Rest in peace, maybe mr. Styles, I’m sorry you died way before you could hear my brilliant advice about baking bread on Halloween.”

“I swear to god, Shane. Anyway, two people died during the fire, and when the town people woke up and found out what happened, got the fire put out, there was almost nothing left-”

”How do they know two people died then?”

“And that’s a good question because technically, no one knows. But there were burns on the floor that resembles a person lying on top of another, and even though there was no physical evidence, there were two stones shaped like hearts with two names on them. One of the stones had gotten broken before someone took a picture of it, but the names written down are Harry and Lou.”

”So they either disappeared, made sure to burn the exact shapes of them in floor, find heart stones, scratch their names in them, and then get away, never to be seen again, or their corpses magically got turned into two heart stones?”

“Exactly, and I know what you’re thinking, there’s no way that story is true, and I’d be inclined to agree, if it hadn’t been for the mysterious non-fires.”

”Non-fires?”

“Non-fires as in, ritually, in the morning on the 31st of October, the entire groundfloor will begin to burn. But the fire doesn’t hurt anyone, there’s been records of people walking straight through them and not getting hurt.”

”And no one’s heard about this before?”

“Because there hasn’t been any physical evidence, every mobile, laptop, camera, surveillance camera, they all either break or have only static video to show, when trying to film these flames.”

”Sounds suspicious.”

“I’ll give you it does sound very convenient, but the town doesn’t commercialise it, so I’m led to believe that this is actually legit.”

”You’ve believed a kid at Halloween was an actual ghost, doesn’t really inspire confidence, you feel me?”

“I do, but our plane tickets and stay in this house have already been booked, so you’re gonna have gain some confidence.”

”When have I ever actually gained confidence in your ghost stories?”

“It’s a good point, but I have a feeling-”

”Wait, we’re going to England, right? Are we gonna go to London and have fun?”

“No, Doncaster has an airport, so-”

”We’re going to England, and we’re not going to London? Literally would rather die, Ryan.”

“Well, if you ask the ghosts nicely.”

_It’s like time’s standing still, it’s like time’s moving too fast, and he can’t keep up, he can’t move. Feels like he’s running underwater, but he’s not because there’s smoke coming up from downstairs, and it’s black, and it smells, and it feels like Death is knocking down their door, and he’s the only person who can stop him from entering and taking away everything he loves._

_He doesn’t know how long there’s been a fire, but the world is already darkening, and he doesn’t know if that’s because of the smoke or because he’s been sleeping and inhaling, inhaling, inhaling._

_He runs faster, as fast as his legs, pushing against invisible barriers, will let him._

“Okay, Ryan,” Shane begins as they walk out the terminal, suitcase rolling leisurely behind him, “are you gonna tell our esteemed viewers interesting facts about Doncaster?”

Ryan looks over at him with raised brows, already looking tired, might be because of the long flight, might be because since they left home to go to the airport, Shane’s been making comments about the ghostly fire and location just to annoy.

“Locals call it Donny,” he answers curtly, “there’s ghosts, and we’re going to see if they’re gonna burn us to death, or if we’re gonna survive.”

Shane nods, smile spreading, looking delighted at the prospect.

He’s weird like that, always has been. If there’s an off chance that legend says the ghosts will kill them, he’ll do everything he can to actually make them.

Just for the kicks, really.

“And are there any real sightings of these ghosts?”, he asks, maybe trying to show real curiosity, doubtful, or he’s trying to find contradictions that’ll blow the entire story apart, very probable. “Or is it just some freaky fire show every year?”

Ryan tilts his head from side to side, considering, weighing the options.

“There kinda has, but not really?”

“And that means?”

“Well, it means that they’ve never been seen? There’s been noises, voices calling for each other.” Pause, making Shane look over, confused, quickly making a rolling ‘go on’ movement with his hand. “And, well, it’s not exactly a ghost, perhaps? But there’s been some, a lot, of instances of the Great British Bake Off getting turned on, on the tv. Out of nowhere.”

Shane laughs, shaking his head at the idea.

“A ghost that died in a bakery, still obsessed with bakery,” he nods to himself, which, weird, “that’s some next level masochism.”

Ryan shoots a tired look out the corner of his eyes, shaking his head, exhaling, mentally telling him to just count to ten. Shane being funny and snarky about everything is what the pessimistic viewers love.

And what the viewers love? Stays. They made them the success they are.

“You know,” he says, completely ignoring his own advice, “some day you’re gonna irritate a ghost so badly, that they’re actually gonna kill you.”

Shane looks at him with a giant grin, because he is _so_ weird. “At least you’ll be able to say ‘I told you so’, and that’s kinda what you’ve been waiting and hoping for for years, isn’t it?”

Ryan nods agreeably because yeah, he kinda signed up in the first place to show Shane what is up with this crazy as fuck world, and there’s more weird stuff out there than a couple ghosts here and there.

There’s been good material, flashlights going on and off, video camera batteries draining in seconds, but all Shane’s done is pick up a feather and think he can have the entire chicken, goading the spirits to come out and kill them all.

Fun times.

“I need you alive for that, dumbass,” he says mockingly, “can’t exactly spend the rest of my year making you feel stupid, if you’re just gonna be dead as soon as I won.”

“I’ll give you that, does make sense.”

“Yeah, it does. Don’t die, idiot.”

Shane puts his hand on his heart, looking all touched, because he’s a dick.

“Didn’t know you cared so much.”

“I don’t, but can’t exactly put your death on YouTube, can we?”

Shane, because he literally doesn’t know when to stop, looks a bit thoughtful at that.

“I don’t know, worked for someone else.”

“Shane, I swear to God. Don’t try to die before the ghosts get their hands on you.”

“Though you didn’t want to me to die?”

Ryan stops up, full stop, and looks at him warningly, making Shane put up his hand in the universal gesture of surrender.

“Sorry?”, he offers, sounding uncertain, eyes flitting to their camera crew who looks so tired and done with them, but fuck them. Their banter is hilarious, especially when Ryan gets so worked up.

“Thank you.”

_The stairs seem never-ending, ever winding, but maybe it’s because he’s swaying from side to side, many a times just stepping back and forth on the same step._

_He wonders idly how long the fire’s been going. How he already can be this dizzy, how he’s not passed out yet. He’s happy though, that he hasn’t._

_He has someone to save, fire be damned, smoke be damned._

“This is the house?”

Shane looks doubtfully at the house which, to be fair, looks like a normal house. There’s nothing inherently scary about it, nothing that hints at the tragedy that once played out inside it. Or some part of it. 

The house is new, renovated, and completely abandoned. Not in the way it looks, but in the way it feels. The weed that’s growing like it was being cared for, the dirty windows, and the general stillness surrounding the house. Like it’s trapped in time.

“This is the house,” Ryan confirms, and they quickly pack all their most important gear out of the truck, and make their way towards the front entrance.

It’s not often that Shan actually ever gets the feeling of something eerie looming over the supposedly haunted houses, sometimes it just looks like an unkempt house, its windows broken and dirty, and the house full of dust, abandoned, left for nature to deal with.

Houses, to him, has always been just that. Houses. Some houses look a bit more like the murder houses you see in movies like IT, but it’s never felt like there was any residual energy from the tragedies that had played out.

Sometimes you did see something very specific that was mentioned in the story, and you feel a ghost of the horrible events, but he’s never felt any dread at walking into a house.

“What’re you waiting for?”, Ryan asks from behind him, looking a little impatient to get in and drop the bags he’s heaving with him.

And he’s not feeling any dread walking into this one either.

Of course.

“Waiting for you to chicken out as usual,” he replies, “thought if I was standing here with you, you wouldn’t feel embarrassed.”

He can see Ryan get ready to throw down some bags in order to hit him, so he quickly shuffles through the door.

The house is empty, empty as can be, even though it’s new, obviously having been not only renovated on the outside, but also on the inside.

It’s ready to be sold, and yet it hasn’t been.

He’s not surprised, just walking through the front door feels like imposing. It feels cold, uninviting, it feels like trespassing.

“So, this is where it’ll go up in flames tomorrow?”, he asks while walking through the hallway, into what he presumes is the living room, big windows allowing the sun light in. It seems distorted, cold, like the sunlight has entered an alternate dimension after hitting the windows.

It feels like being inside a mirror world.

“Not exactly, this is the main house,” Ryan replies, before tapping Shane’s leg with one of the bags, head nodding to turn down the door on the left when Shane looks over at him, “the flames start in the bakery.”

Shane looks almost impressed as they turn down the new corridor.

“There’s still a bakery?” 

It sounds a little too masochistic, to keep the thing that killed two people, not even just keep it. To actually build it up again.

“Sort of.”

Before he gets to asking what he even means by ‘sort of’, how could one ‘sort of’ have a bakery that burned to the ground with two people inside, Ryan opens a new door, and he gets his answer.

The room itself has been rebuilt, but it’s as much of an empty shell as the rest of the house, except for one thing.

There’s writings all over the walls.

And on the ground, and Shane, very rarely, gets the feeling to run away from any of these ‘crime scenes’, it’s only happened once, on that doll island. Even as much fun as it was to laugh at Ryan, that place was scary, not because of the stories, but because what even was that place. An island of dolls. Just the concept is scary.

But looking at the floor, he wants to. Wants to run back to the car, and back to the airport, and then back to the US.

“Jesus,” breathes Ryan, sounding like he got punched in the stomach.

On the ground is the markings of two people, black like soot, black like death, and in the middle, like two gravestones, are the two white heart-shaped stones that Ryan described. Looking like two snowflakes, as pristinely white, and pure, and so heartbreakingly beautiful.

Two white hearts in the middle of a room that’s a testament to the last moments of two people who had woken up one morning to the world burning.

He crouches down beside the two stones, careful not to touch the black marks, inspecting them further. And exactly as Ryan said, there has been knocked a little tab of one of the stones, so they read ‘Harry’ and ‘Lou’.

“Shane.”

He looks up again to see Ryan standing close to a wall, soot marks all over the wall, even though there shouldn’t be. The wall had burned, crumpled in the fire, that’s what Ryan said.

“According to pictures, this is where the biggest oven stood.”

If there was magic at place here, it would make sense, he supposes. To magically cover the wall where the thing that killed them stood originally.

He can hear the shuffles of their camera men behind them, getting ready to film all their reactions.

“What does the writings say?”

Ryan turns around, looking a little confused.

“Writings?”

Shane nods, pointing to the other walls, and Ryan walks over there slowly to inspect, before turning back towards Shane, looking a little ill.

“It’s tally marks.”

_He runs, as fast as he can, tumbling into the walls, heart beat loud in his ears, and it doesn’t feel fast enough._

_He needs to get there. He needs to save him._

_So he runs, and he runs, and everything’s getting hotter, and thicker, and he can’t understand how quickly this can go, how he didn’t wake up, how he couldn’t have heard._

_He doesn’t understand how his heart didn’t wake him up. The love of his life is in there._

_He runs, runs, runs, and then he can finally see the door, and the corridor has never seemed farther, every step seeming like he’s just walking on the same spot._

_The door is so far away, and his head is so heavy, and his heart is thundering._

_Thumb. Thumb Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb._

_He has to get there._

_His love isn’t gonna die in a fire, alone, in pain, not if he can help it. And he can._

There’s 139 tally marks on the walls.

One for each year it’s been since the bakery burned down.

One for each of the 139 fires on the day of All Hallows Eve. This year will mark the 140th.

Almost 140 years of, if there is any ghosts here, existing in the home they’d lived in, they’d died in, and each year were reminded of just how they became the illusions of life they were.

One tally mark for each of the years they’d been stuck in limbo.

Very rarely had this thought ever struck Shane, but there would be something terrible and heartbreakingly unfair over these ghosts being real.

Trapped with nowhere to go, all their loved ones dead, buried at funerals they couldn’t attend, with no one to talk to but each other.

He hopes, and he can’t believe he’s actually thinking this, but it’s alright, it’s only in his head - he can still play the suspicious Shane when the cameras are rolling, but he hopes they find a way to pass over, that they find peace, and can leave this world, slipping away, finally transitioning.

“Shane?”

“Ryan?”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Someone’s been having trouble with finding a calendar?”

“You’re an idiot.” A beat, and Shane can feel his heart slow down a little at the familiar banter. “No, someone’s been keeping count of the years.”

“You don’t say?”

“Why would anyone do this if there wasn’t a reason?”

“Don’t know, we’ve been on an island of dolls, people have done stranger things.”

Ryan shrugs, and Shane smiles winningly, he loves getting Ryan to admit whenever something gets a bit far fetched, even for him.

“What do you think of the hearts?”

Shane looks at then, rocking his head from side to side like he’s weighing his options.

“Can they be removed?”

Ryan hesitates, looking at them with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know? Seems a bit, I don’t know, disrespectful, doesn’t it?”

“Well, if they can’t be moved, I will grant you it all seems rather fishy.”

“Rather fishy?”

“That’s what I said.”

They use the next few hours on setting up all the equipment that they need to get all possible angles on the possible fires.

“You know, Ryan”, Shane contemplates, “if there’s not even the shadow of a spark, you’re gonna look a bit stupid.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And you’ve looked stupid before.”

From the side, one of their camera men, looking very tired, and Shane can’t help but throw a little grin at Ryan who responds by shaking his head, asks them, “could we get this done, guys? And then you can tear off each other’s heads afterwards?”

It’s a fair deal, so they nod, and they actually do look a bit sorry which is new.

When they all take hand in the work, it actually doesn’t take that long, and by 8pm, they’re ready for when the ghosts eventually come out. Which won’t be for hours.

“Hey Ryan?”

“Yeah?”, he sounds a bit cautious, like he doesn’t like Shane’s tone. Which, by the way, is completely innocent.

“Do you have your computer with you?”

“Why would I have a computer with me to a haunted house?”

“Do you?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not point-”

Shane smiles winningly, and Ryan groans.

“We’re gonna watch the Great British Bake off, and try and lure out some ghosts.”

For once Ryan actually looks a bit impressed at Shane’s ideas, giving him an, admittedly reluctant, acknowledging nod.

“You’re not entirely stupid, Shane.”

“Gee, I’m flattered.”

So they put on the Great British Bake Off, in a house in Donny, in England, that’s maybe inhabited by two ghosts, two lovers, stuck in the house where they used to have a life, so far away from the time they were born in.

It’s a little tragic, it’s a little sweet.

“Do you think they’ll actually come out?”

Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know, but there’s still some comfort in thinking that this show brings them some sort of consolation, doesn’t it?”

Shane nods, looking at the old lady trying to get her cake finished before the timer runs out, there’s five minutes to go and she’s missing most of her decoration, and he can’t help but lean a little further forward in the position he’s sitting in.

There’s a shift in the air, he thinks, like someone else is doing the same, holding their breath, and there’s a whisper of a hoarse laugh, like someone’s finding great amusement in the way he’s getting sucked in by a programme following bakers trying to outbake each other and impress some judges.

He almost says something to Ryan, tries telling him about this feeling before looking into the camera, and thinks, no way. He’s not losing his facade because a house is messing with his senses. There’s no such thing as ghosts.

This house, as sad and empty and outworldly as it seems, is just another house, rebuilt on tragedy, on death, as so many other houses. It’s not anything special, it’s just a house. A house with a history, a history that is heartbreaking, but that doesn’t make it anything other than what it is.

He finds the idea of ghosts macabre too, to think, to wish upon someone else, the curse of eternal life, but only half a life, stuck to the site where they died. It’s a terrible fate. It seems kinder to just accept facts, hope for facts, and not believe in ghosts.

He focuses on the laptop’s screen again.

The old lady didn’t make it.

The air feels a bit heavier, and then it feels normal again. Like there was a presence and the old woman’s failure made them want to not be there. He can understand that. You hope for the best for the people you see on television, feel their success and failure as if they were your own.

To a ghost, if there is such a thing, it must be even more terrible watching someone fail. Especially at baking.

The next episode involves fire, and without thinking he skips it. He thinks he can hear a sigh of relief.

“There’s someone here, Shane, I’m telling you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s cold? It’s literally gotten three degrees colder in a few minutes.”

“Should we make them reveal themselves?”

“How the fuck do you propose we do that?”

“Just call on them?”

Ryan looks at him like he’s absolutely bonkers. “Call on them? Like what? ‘Oi oi ghosts, come out ya lil bastards’?”

Shane shrugs. “Yeah, something like that, honestly.”

“You do it then, maybe they’ll kill you.”

“Didn’t think you wanted them to kill me.”

Ryan throws him a dark look. “Could be persuaded.”

Shane laughs good heartedly, before clearing his throat. “Oi oiii, ghosts, come out, ya lil bastards!”

And it’s not the best accent, he knows that, but it’s a start, and there is a little shift in the room, in the air, and he looks over at Ryan quickly who looks as torn as can be. Like his fight or flight reflex is going absolutely haywire, wanting to do both and can’t make a decision.

“You alright?”

“Just mind your own business.”

“We can go home, if you want, there’s no-”

“Shut up.”

Shane lifts his arms in the universal ‘I come in peace’ sign, and Ryan throws him a very rude gesture that they’ll have to bleep on the video.

Tsk, tsk, giving the editors more work.

“What’s the time?”

“Just after 12 AM, so there should be a few hours before the fire starts.”

“And it starts by the soot on the wall, I guess?”

Ryan shrugs, “that’s what I’d guess, so I was thinking we’d camp out here, with the door open so we can still see when the fire starts. If it’s a lie that it doesn’t hurt, we can still get out of here.”

“Yeah wouldn’t want to end up like those sorry sods.”

“That’s really disrespectful.”

“So’s camping out about two metres from where we can see they died, but here we are, aren’t we?”

Ryan rolls his eyes.

“Be that way.”

_The door is hot, and he almost weeps with the thought that he’s not gonna be able to get in the room, but he doesn’t. Nothing’s holding him back._

_He does nearly scream when he pushes the door up, sure that if he makes it out, his hands are gonna be filled with blisters. It would, however, be a small price to pay for getting out. The only way he’ll ever get out is if he gets his love out with him._

_The bakery is alit in flames, and it’s terrible, and it’s horrifying, and he can feel his eyes water, but that might just be the smoke and his eyes screaming at him to get out, and feel his heart breaking._

_The flames are eating everything they’d ever worked for, and they’re doing it up fast._

_Looking around, arm in front of his eyes, trying to keep the smoke out, just enough to get a real visual over the room, he can feel panic bubbling inside him._

_“Harry!”_

“What’s the time?”, Ryan yawned, eyes bleary, unfocused on yet another episode of the bake off show.

“It’s almost three,” Shane replies, not daring to look away from the screen. It’s a young girl, this time, who’s struggling. She’s been a star all through the season, and it should have been obvious that this close to the final, she would begin to struggle, that’s almost always how it is with shooting stars, but he still hoped.

The air shifts a bit when the action on screen shifts too, when she begins to figure out how to get through her problems, when she figures out how to improvise, and Shane feels a bit teary eyed, if he’s honest, at watching her pull through in the end. The episode was about fifty minutes, and it’d been 45 minutes of constant mix ups and failures, but for the last challenge, she actually finds a way to get it to work.

It’s pretty damn impressive.

His proud tears that sit in his eyes, not falling, just wetting his eyes, are all due to him being tired he tells himself.

“So we have about an hour before everything hopefully kicks off.”

“Someone should probably check on the cameras then.”

There’s a bit of shuffling, and all the cameramen show an affirmative thumbs, the batteries are still full, so everything from now on depends on the next hour. If the cameras don’t drain, that’s the first piece of the story collapsing. If the fires don’t start, that’s another chunk. If there’s not any sign of ghosts either, it’s gonna be yet another video where Shane is right, Ryan is not and will end up calling it ‘unsolved’ to avoid actually saying outright that Shane is right.

He is, though.

This one instance is one of the first times he’s ever actually wavered a bit. But it’s just the atmosphere in the house.

“How should we prepare for the oncoming ghosts?”

“Don’t think they’re gonna come out before they’re forced to.”

“What, you think they’ll be forced to relive it, reenact everything, when the fire starts?”

Ryan shrugs. “There’s a lot of conflicting reports of what happens at 4am on the 31st of October, but I’ll talk about them in post.”

“Should we cut to post now, then?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

“Alright, so we’ve covered the groundwork of what happened in that house in Doncaster 140 years ago. Bakery burns down in the morning of Halloween, no bodies are found, but there’s soot marks and in the middle of those marks, are two white stones shaped like hearts. Every year, on this morning, an illusionistic fire starts and will rage for the next few hours, not hurting anyone or anything in the house.”

”And there’ll be ghosts?”

“There’ll most likely be ghosts, yes. But what we’re gonna talk about now is the few theories there is for the fire.”

”Oh, it isn’t clear what happened?”

“I wanted to keep it as tight as possible, but there is a lot of sources that say that the second stone was gonna say ‘Louis’, and that they were a gay couple who lived under the guise of being friends. One a baker, another a teacher at the local school.”

”That’s pretty domestic.”

“A few diaries mention them as ‘kindred spirits’ and ‘best friends since the school yard’, but for obvious reasons they were never public or married, so we don’t know who Louis was other than his name and possibly his career.”

”There isn’t a record of the school teachers from that time?”

“Unfortunately not. Now, let’s say that diaries and gossip is true. Two men living together, apparently been best friends since childhood, but denying they can find any girls to live their lives with, is suspicious. Most diary entries from that time is from around 1875, so they’d been living together for a long time.”

”Any diaries mentioning a last name for poor Louis?”

“No, but there is one that mentions a Lottie in relation to him, so that could be a sister, a cousin, a friend, a beard, so many possibilities.”

“Anyway, some people have over the years formed the theory that the fire was not accidental, arguing that the one who baked, in these theories it’s Harry, had done so for many years and there’s no records of ever having been a fire in the bakery, in his care.”

”Let me guess, the fires were set.”

“Well, not exactly set, but people believe gunpowder had been put in the oven, so when it was lit in the morning-”

”Kaboom.”

“Yeah, kaboom. It would have started a massive fire, that would have spread quickly, and probably have knocked out the baker had he stood too close.”

”And when the other notices it, wakes up or gets back from a morning trek, they’d have to run through smoke all through the house, and have enough strength to get them both out of there.”

“Evidently, that’s not what happened. Louis, or Harry, would most likely have come from their bed, upstairs as the ground floor was a shop, and would have had to run downstairs, yeah, and through the smoke. Smoke would have been pouring out, and he’d have maybe fifteen minutes at most.”

“So if this theory is right, what we have is a bigoted murder of two young people, and the worst kind of death, by fire.”

”I rarely ever admit that there’s anything suspicious about anything you pull up, but if I was murdered I’d probably be haunting that spot too.”

“Well, it definitely gives a reason for why their spirits would stick around, if it was just a freak accident there’s not really any reason to not move on. It’s just being really unlucky? But this was deliberate. There’s a lot of cases of spirits sticking around when their death was deliberate, especially in horrific fashions like this.”

”So what can we do to release their spirits?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve started to believe.”

”Not at all, just trying to get into your mindset.”

“Okay, but obviously the stones are linked to their souls staying on this earth, but I have no idea what we could do untether their souls.”

”I vote destroy the stones.”

“And you would destroy the stones how? Step on them? Obviously someone's already done something to Louis' stone, doesn't seem to have helped them move on.”

”You don’t know my stone destroyer skills, so I’ll thank you to not underestimate them.”

“Aha, well, we can always put those gifts to the test for you.”

It’s October and here in England, it’s still dark in the morning when they get closer and closer to the fated time of 4AM, and he can’t help but feel a bit nervous about the eerie quiet that’s befallen them.

They turned off British Bake Off some ten minutes ago, and since then it’s felt like the time has crawled too slow and run too fast.

It’s 3.45, and there’s 15 minutes till it becomes apparent if there’s any ghosts to talk about.

“If there is a fire that doesn’t burn and we prove it, and set the ghosts free, do you think we’ll be knighted?”

“No, because we threw their tea in harbour, we can’t be knighted.”

“We could change citizenship, just for the glory.”

“That’d be so extra of us.”

“Well, then it’s right up our alley, anyway.”

_”Harry!”, he yells, and it’s hoarse, it hurts to yell, to breathe, and he just wants to get to Harry. He just wants to see Harry._

_He looks around again, and again, but all that’s meeting him is flames and smoke, and he begins to walk, stumbles, coughes, feels like he might pass out any minute, but he can’t, he needs to find Harry._

_Harry. Harry. Harry._

_It’s all that’s going through his head, the need, the intense, heartbreaking need to just find him, and get him out. Get him out, get to safety, survive with Harry._

_Everything in his life has been about Harry, and it’ll always be._

_“Harry!”_

_He stumbles again, looks down, and there his beautiful is, a bleeding wound on his forehead, face covered in soot but otherwise so pale, so pale, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been this relieved._

_“Harry,” he whispers as he kneels down. “Harry, Harry, Harry.”_

The clock is 3.59 when all the cameras go out, and all they have is a little, pretty pathetic phone to record everything.

Its battery is draining fast, though.

“So, that’s,” Shane begins, and Ryan looks at him with wide eyes.

“They better be right about the fire, Shane,” he whispers, “I don’t wanna burn to death.”

“You won’t,” he whispers back, hand steady on the other’s shoulder, squeezing as to comfort and anchor him, “if it burns, we’ll be out of here as fast as you can say ‘Buzzfeed unsolved’.”

“Nice, sits right at your tongue.”

“Well, we’re not the Flash, are we? Give us at least two seconds, and then we’ll be gone.”

“Do you think it hurts?”

“I have never in my life believed in ghosts, but I do admit the whole camera thing was impressive.”

And then the clock turns from 3.59 to 4.00, and the last battery on the phone shuts off, and a loud bang sounds from the bakery.

Ryan looks with wide eyes at Shane, subtly shaking his head, even as Shane moves forward, towards the sudden glint of light that can be seen from where the bakery is.

“Be careful, for fucks sake,” Ryan hisses at him.

“Didn’t think you cared so much, pal, it’s heartwarming.”

“Don’t call me your pal when you’re about to die.”

“What should I call you? Sweet cheeks?”

Ryan makes a face, and Shane can’t stop his laughter. “No, why the hell would you-”

And then another voice sounds, it’s inbetween a whisper and a voice, he’d say, and it sounds almost like a sigh in the wind, like a creak of the door, the floor, and he almost misses it.

"I like it."

He looks towards the bakery again and there, in the door opening, surrounded by flames, stands a boy. 

He would probably object to being called that, face clearly matured enough to be far above the 18, but he looks so young, a little lost, and Shane can’t help but think of him as nothing but a child.

His body seems to engulfed in the flames, but they’re not spreading, and he doesn’t seem bothered.

“Shane, what the _fuck_,” Ryan whispers vehemently from where he’s standing, a good half pace behind him.

“I think you’ve got your ghost,” he whispers back, before turning to the boy again, arms raised high. “We come in peace, do not harm us.”

The boy just smiles, a bit serenely, and nods. “I know. You watched the Great British Bake Off.”

Shane nods. “Yeah, we did. Did you watch too?”

The boy nods again. “I did, for a bit. Then the old lady lost.” It’s like, despite the flames crackling at the end of the hallway, the temperature noticeably drops, and his face goes dark, the flames inside dimming a bit. Not in strength, but in colour.

“Oh shit, I’ve seen this so many times in movies,” Ryan whispers in his ear, “you’ve made the ghost sad, and now we’ll be dragged to hell.”

“What the fuck kind of movies do you watch?”

“What? I’m just preparing.”

“Ehm, mr. Ghost?”, he calls, not getting any reaction, deciding to go out on a limb, “Harry?”

The ghost looks up, confused, almost childlike in the confusion, brows furrowed, eyes vulnerable.

“You know my name?”

“I know your name,” he whispers, comforting, or at least trying to be. Gentle. “I know your name. Harry Styles?”

The boy nods again, brows creased, still looking so closed off, nervous, wondering.

“How do you know my name? No one’s said that name for so many years.” His voice tones out again at the end, sounding like a sigh before falling asleep, the whisper of a gentle breeze. A goodbye not said out loud.

“We researched a bit, put pieces together,” Shane explained, looking back at Ryan for support, “it wasn’t easy. It’s been a long time.”

Harry nods. “I know.”

It’s a heartbreaking statement, and he wishes he could do something to heal whatever’s broken inside of him.

A ghost, after this long, he thinks, should have found some comfort, that’s what he’s always hoped. Should have figured out how to haunt, how to make things rattle to scare people for fun.

Not stand in a hallway, surrounded by flames, looking lost, like he died yesterday.

Ryan comes up to his side, and he can hear some shuffling from the camera men behind them.

“Is-”, he breaks off as Harry looks over at him, obviously not prepared for the intensity of the sadness in his gaze. “Is Lou with you too?”

“Lou?”, Harry whispers brokenly.

“Louis?”, Ryan tries again. “You lived with Louis, right?”

Harry nods again, his form fading a bit, like he just wants to disappear just from the mention of that name.

“Yeah, I lived with Lou,” he tells them, his body flickering in and out of existence, “died with him too.”

There’s not a lot that can be said about that. There’s no words of comfort to be given, no soothing words that can heal almost 150 years of hurt.

Especially not when it’s apparent that whatever’s holding Harry here, it’s not holding Louis.

“Can we come closer?”, Shane asks because if by some happenstance Harry happens to be a malicious ghost that’s just waited for his chance, in some strange turn of events, then Shane thinks he should give Ryan the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’ one more time.

It’s incredible, really, that he hasn’t said it yet.

He must have thought it, though. Tried to yell it to him via telepathy.

It’s not really the atmosphere to break out a quib like that, not with Harry looking like he’s still nursing a broken heart.

It’s a painful thought, thinking of Harry burning every year, being alone, without his best friend, true love, whatever Louis was to him.

Being alone is the greatest punishment anyone could get, Shane thinks, and looking at Harry, he seems like the person who deserves it the least.

Harry looks at him with a quite empty gaze before nodding, slowly, like he can’t really be bothered, his body flickering a bit again. Like a hologram that’s losing its connection.

He wishes Harry was a hologram. Would never wish this upon anyone.

As they get to the door, Shane feels frozen as he looks at the ocean of flames he’s met with. Phantom flames of a night long passed, hauntingly beautiful, and when he looks at Harry, they’re so close to a real life ghost and he can’t quite fathom it because meeting a ghost should have been fun and exciting - he hadn’t ever thought about this haunting, empty feeling, he can see the flames reflected in his eyes.

They look more beautiful than ever. It’s art, and it’s both beautiful and ugly, and he can’t quite look away.

There’s something so bizarre in seeing the flames reflected in Harry’s eyes, in his entire body.

“This is where it happened?”

Harry nods slowly. “Louis tried to get me out, but the smoke was too much.” He reached up to touch his forehead, the faded colour of red visible. “He couldn’t carry me.”

There’s silence, only the crackling of flames long since gone out.

“He didn’t save himself. He just laid down with me.”

Ryan looks around the room, focusing on the stones in the middle. The shadow of where they lay seems almost like it’s glowing, and the stones like they’re two lights of their own. Two stars in the middle of all this horror.

“What happened to Louis?”

Harry doesn’t answer immediately, body disappearing for a moment, like everything Louis makes him want to disappear. He wonders if Harry’s wanting to pass over, or if he’s fighting the transition.

Both possibilities are tragic in and of themselves, and he can’t imagine how Harry must be feeling.

Harry does come back, and if he looks a little more haunted, a little less clear, they don’t comment on it.

Who are they to know anything about ghosts, in the first place.

“He came back with me,” Harry whispers, and with all the crackling in the room, Shane has to step closer to him. It’s colder closer to Harry. Death is cold, lonesome. “For the first many years. Came barreling down the stairs every year, panicked he came too late, and then we spent the day together, fell asleep together.”

It’s a tale of two broken boys, really, that got life taken away too soon, too early, unfairly, in the worst way possible. Of two boys who only ever wanted to be together.

Shane thinks it would make a very good story, and yet it feels too pure to ever be turned into something other than what it is right now. Their story.

It feels wrong to share it. It feels wrong to hear the story from anyone who isn’t Harry.

“There’s been a few families here through the years, but they never stuck. The fire scared them.” Harry seems fixated on the stones, shining, shining, shining. “So it was just us.”

Just them and eternity.

“But then Louis slept for longer, fell asleep earlier.”

Shane is a very strong man, in control of his own emotions, but the way it’s told, so slowly, without any pretense, no drama to make it more enticing than it already is, is enough to make him tear up.

“He didn’t wake up last year.”

There’s a little flicker from the stones, one of them vibrating, pulsing, like it wants to comfort Harry, and the first, the only, shadow of a smile appears on Harry’s lips.

“But he’s still here, so I’m staying here.”

It’s a tragedy upon a tragedy, and it’s the hopeless story of life being taken away, cruelly, horribly, unfairly, and then being cursed to stay behind.

He hopes there is no God or gods at all because condemning someone, two innocent people, to this seems more cruel than he hopes any almighty power would permit.

“Did you love him?”, Ryan asks, and it’s an innocent question, a loaded question, and it could have brought bad things upon them had Harry been a bad ghost, but all he does is nod.

“I loved him,” he confirmed, “and he loved me.”

There isn’t much to be said, there isn’t anything that _can_ be said.

“Do you know what happened?”

Harry shakes his head. “I was going to make bread as usual for the bakery. We were very popular, needed everything stocked up and ready for the morning crowd. I wanted to let the oven get warm little by little, so I lit a candle and stuck it in, down below the oven, and then there was a bang-”

“So the theory was right?”, Ryan asks cautiously, “you were murdered?”

Harry cringes at the statement, but after a moment, he nods, slowly, hesitantly. “I was. Louis was being stupid.”

“Stupid?”

It feels like an interrogation, and it feels wrong to press all these details out of him, but he doesn’t say stop, and it’s fascinating, in a morbid fashion, to know more about what happened so long ago.

It’s amazing he can still remember it all.

But then again, he thinks with an inward cringe, he hasn’t really had that much to do other than that.

It must have been terrible. Especially after Louis began to disappear.

“He didn’t want to leave me. I think I was already gone by the time he was dying too. The flames stayed away, thankfully, until he’d passed out.” Harry closes his eyes, face creased in pain. “He kept saying how I was the brightness in his life, how everything in his life had been planned, had revolved, around me. He didn’t want to ever see a morning without me, not when there was so many mornings left to see. He didn’t want to face everyone, tell them how he’d ran, ran away from me, left me behind.”

It’s so wrong, of someone to willingly die with their beloved, and his heart breaks a little at the thought of two bright souls being snuffed out like that, in the morning, alone and desperate.

He looks at Ryan, Ryan already looking back, and it hits him how much Louis would have had to be in love. How he couldn’t imagine a life without Harry, didn’t want that life, had thought of the beauty of sunrises and sunsets, had thought of every adventure he’d ever be on in his life, every mountain and river and lake and beach he’d see in his lifetime, all the wondrous places and sights that’d leave him breathless, and decided he didn’t want any of it, if he didn’t have Harry to share it with.

“I was so angry at him when we woke up that first time. So angry, I almost hit him,” and then he laughs, and it’s a broken, horrible sound, “but then I remembered I wouldn’t be able to. Oh, I could hit him, but it wouldn’t hurt, it wouldn’t do anything. Because we were both dead.”

“What did he say?”

“He just repeated what he’d told me when we lay on the floor,” Harry looks so angry at the past Louis, and so sad, “that he didn’t have the strength to carry me out, and there was only one way he’d ever go out the door, and that was with me.”

The stone, the one with the ‘Lou’, on it is still flickering, and Harry doesn’t look away for a second.

It’s a bit disturbing to look at him, seeing him not blink, just staring emptily at the one stone, a small smile playing on his lips after a bit. The smile seeming so ugly when it was paired with those empty eyes.

“He looked so at peace with that decision, and all I wanted to do was scream at him, how he could have done it. How he could have thrown away his life for me, how he could think so lowly of himself, that he deserved to live all the years God had given him and more. He deserved everything. But he didn’t want everything.”

_All he wanted was me_ is left unsaid, but it rings out loud and clear.

“Why did he disappear?”

Harry bites his lip, eyes filling up with emotions, spilling over like tears. There’s so much going on, and Shane can’t get a grip on even one of the emotions visible in those ghost eyes of his.

He guesses that heartbreak fills a lot, though.

“He didn’t want to,” Harry explained, “he’d already thrown away so much for me, though he’d never look at it that way. He wanted to stay with me forever.”

Forever is a fantastic long time, that can’t even be comprehended. Not when you actually very well could get to have that.

For Shane, for Ryan, for their camera men left behind in the corridor, in the living room, forever is maybe sixty years if they’re lucky. And then old age will take them all back to the weeds, to the ground from whence they came.

For Harry, for Louis, forever could very well be just that. Eternity. Eon after eon, empires rising around them, falling again, they’d be able to witness everything among them change, and change, and change again, and they’d be stuck here. In their little house, with their fires.

“But about ten years ago, we got into a fight. It was stupid really. Looking back it doesn’t make any sense. I wanted to leave, I wanted out of this house, and Louis said he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to see how our village had changed, how many of our friends had died, and their families moved away. I told him I’d try even if he didn’t want to, and he said he’d go to sleep if I did.”

Ghost words are maybe more powerful than one could imagine, Shane supposes.

“I went to grab the door, and he went upstairs and went to sleep. It wasn’t time for him to go to sleep. Our routine is that I sleep first, I fell unconscious first, I died first. That’s how it’d been for 130 years, and then he changed it up because I was being a brat, and he was being dramatic. And it seemed to be the last drop for the water to go over the glass’ edges. He woke up later, he went to sleep earlier, he didn’t talk as much.”

Harry walked slowly over to the two small stones, straight through the flames that had once stolen his life, had stolen his future.

“In the end, he just didn’t wake up at all.”

Harry doesn’t pick up the stones but he does lay his hand upon Louis’, like he’s trying to get some comfort, some feel of Louis like he hasn’t properly in so many years.

“He’s still here, stuck in limbo like I am, he just doesn’t wake up.”

Harry looks back at them, his face glinting in the light of the flames, tears visible and so stark on his ghostlike skin. Everything seem intangible, but the tears seem wet, and they’re heartbreaking.

“Please, help me make him wake up.”

His voice is pleading, cracking, so weak, and Shane wonders what would happen if Harry let himself be carried away like Louis did.

“Don’t you want to die?”, Ryan asks him gently, and Harry looks at him with mournful eyes, hand cradling the stones, protectively.

“I can’t die. I can disappear,” he tells them, “but without Louis, I can’t move on. That’s why I’m still here, why I still wake up even when Louis doesn’t. We need to see the dawn together, we need to be outside.”

“How do you know all this?”

He shrugs. “I just do. Maybe I got some rulebook before I became a ghost, but it was only after Louis left that I remembered.”

“So you want him back so you can die?”

The flames roar up, and Shane jumps back, arms protectively reached out against the flames, against Harry who looks absolutely murderous, black lines around his eyes pronounced, and his eyes look like death itself, black, empty, endless.

He could get lost in those eyes, he thinks, and he’d never leave again. 

Ryan is shaking a little, as Shane reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly, stepping in front of him, using his body as a shield, and Harry looks from one second to the other like he’s been stabbed, the flames going down, his eyes wide, broken.

“Louis protected me as well,” he whispered hollowly, “that’s why the soot marks are like they are. He lay on top of me, protecting my body, the empty shell, against the flames.”

He turns around. “I want Louis back because I love him, I miss him, I want to be with him. If I had to endure these flames in this awful house for all eternity, if that’s the price to get him back, I’d pay it. A million times over.”

_He tries to heave Harry up on his back, he tries to drag him, through coughing, through the spots over his eyes, he tries everything he can to get Harry closer and closer to the door, to freedom._

_“Harry,” he whispers brokenly, pleadingly, “Harry, please wake up. Help me.”_

_He hates asking Harry for help, likes to think he can take of them both just fine, but his muscles feel so weak, like they’re not there at all, and his world is spinning, spinning, spinning, and he’s losing control of his limbs, and he just wants to save Harry._

_“Come on,” he begs, begs Harry, begs the world, begs God, “please wake up. I can’t do this alone.”_

_He heaves, as hard as he can, and it’s not enough. It hurts so much to realise that. He can’t save Harry._

“What’s the deal with the hearts?”, Shane asks him after a bit, after he’s calmed down again, looking like every bit the sad, lonely, lost boy he is, trapped in a curse, in a loop, he can’t break.

“Our tethers to this world. Our anchors,” he answers, “they can’t be broken until Louis has woken up, otherwise he’ll never get to the other side.”

The other side. Heaven, paradise, nothing but silence. Everything and anything must be better than how they’ve lived these past many, many years.

“How do we wake him?”

Harry looks at them, biting his lip like he’s trying to keep in his cries, like they’re sitting high in his throat, and this is all he can do to not break down. He shrugs, looking so lost, and all Shane wants is to give him a hug.

“Can we go upstairs? Would his presence be there?”

Harry shrugs again, and when he speaks, his voice is low and shaky. “I don’t know. I haven’t ever dared to go up there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t wanna be disappointed.”

Shane shares a look with Ryan, and he nods back at him, looking just as emotional, just as choked up, and he turns back to Harry.

“We can check for you?”

Harry looks at them with wet, hopeful eyes. “Would you?”

Ryan nods. “Of course. How can we wake him up?”

Harry goes to shake his head, and Ryan continues, “no, no, sorry, how did _you_ wake him up back in the day?”

Harry seems be taken off guard, and his eyes are impossibly wide as he tries to remember memories so long ago, and for a minute, a horrible minute, Shane thinks that he’s forgotten. That all Harry can remember are those terrible last moments of an explosion, of fire, of panic, of death.

Of watching the love of his life stay with him till death took him too.

But then he speaks, and Shane feels like he can breath again. “I sang him a Danish lullaby.”

“Danish?”

Harry nods. “Yeah, it’s one my mum taught me once.”

“Lullabies are goodnight songs, aren’t they?”

“He liked being woken by them,” Harry says, and shrugs. “I just wanted to make him happy, it’s all I ever wanted.”

Shane nods, doesn’t say anything, because again, what can you say? What can you tell a boy that’s been dead for 140 years, whose only company has been the love of his life, and now he’s gone, maybe for good.

“Can you sing the lullaby for us?”

Harry nods, smiling slightly. “Yeah, of course.” He coughs a bit, to clear his throat, he probably hasn’t been singing that song for years. Maybe not in 140 years. “_Nu tændes der stjerner på himlen blå, halvmånen løfter sin snabel. Jeg våger, at ikke de slemme mus skal liste sig op i din snabel. Sov sødt, lille Jumbo og visselul, nu bliver skoven så dunkel. Nu sover din tante, den gamle struds, og næsehornet, din onkel._”

It’s a beautiful little melody, and it sounds so soft, and Shane’s heart clenches a bit at the thought of Harry lying in bed, softly singing it to the love his life, waking him up with perhaps a cup of tea, and a kiss.

It seems so unfair, how early everything had been taken from them, how their lives had been ruined, destroyed, and how much good they have in them, how the world just lost that, in a matter of hours.

“How long do we have?”

“Before I go to sleep?”

“Yeah, how long do we have to wake him up, and get you two out and see the dawn?”

Harry shakes his head, looking tragically hopeless. “I don’t know, I don’t know. It felt like just a few moments with Louis, like lifetimes without him. I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry,” Ryan tries to soothe him, and it’s so weird how close they’ve gotten to a _ghost_, how they’re doing everything they can to get him to move on. To delete all traces of what this series is all about solving. The mystery of ghosts, do they exist or not?

When they get out to the living room, all the camera men have gone to sleep, and it seems so weird, but it must be part of the curse laying on this house.

Must be why no one has talked to Harry in so long. You gotta keep yourself occupied or you go to sleep.

“Do you think they’ll remember in the morning?”, Shane asks Ryan, tilting his head to the sleeping people.

He shrugs. “Maybe, but hopefully not. It’ll make it all the more easier.”

“Yeah, don’t really want to go through the legal process of actually discovering ghosts and convincing everyone of it, with no proof.”

“As if we’d ever do that. The whole basis for our show would be gone.”

“That’s true, and how long until our accounts run dry? We’d be on the streets in a year.”

“You would be in half a year, you big spender.”

Shane throws him a loopsided smile, shakes his head, and begins to walk up the stairs. “Let’s go sing a Danish lullaby.”

_He can’t save Harry._

_It’s a realisation that hurts, hurts more than everything he’s ever felt before, and he can’t stand this pain._

_He can’t save Harry._

_The flames roar, almost like they’re laughing at him, laughing at his pathetic attempts to get him and Harry away safely, and he glares at them._

_“You won’t get him,” he vows. “You will never touch him.”_

_The flames almost seem to inspect him with curiosity, flames holding back, keeping back, and it might just be him hallucinating everything, his head is really dizzy, very heavy, and he just wants to sleep._

_“You’ll never get him,” he whispers, “never will the flames touch him and hurt him.” He puts everything into the vow, tears falling down his face, and he lies down with Harry, holds him close, whispers it into his hair, over and over again, and over and over again._

_He puts his arms around Harry, rolls over him, so it’s Louis’ back that faces the flames. From this angle, he can see the door, but with Harry’s weight in his arms, as familiar as nothing has ever been before, he can’t bring himself to rise._

_“I love you,” he whispers into Harry’s hair, breathing it like a prayer, an unbreakable vow, “I love you so much.”_

There’s several rooms upstairs, but there’s one room that seems to call to them. The windows aren’t overly big, but in the morning, when the sun rises, there’ll be a beautiful sunrise, a beautiful light in this room.

He thinks this is exactly the room that Harry and Louis would have lived in, and have been happy.

“Here?”, he asks Ryan, just to be sure, and Ryan shrugs.

“Feels as good as any of the others, maybe even better.”

They don’t remember all the words, and it’s not a soothing or soft as when Harry sang it, the feeling - all the love, hope, longing - is missing, but they’re trying their best, and with every word he tries to sing, he’s sending out a prayer to anyone in the universe that’ll listen, to please let Louis return to Harry.

They sing the verse over and over again, and he feels his throat get a little bit more hoarse each time, had wished he’d brought a water bottle, and they get a little more out of tune each time, a little more desperate.

_Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up._

“Sov sødt, lille Jumbo,” he sings, “og visselul.”

He doesn’t know how many times they’ve sung it, doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want to go downstairs and actually have to tell Harry that Louis is well and truly gone. Just as they’re about to stop, he looks at Ryan and he’s nodding too, agreeing they should stop, just as they’re brink of giving in, another voice joins in.

Softer, hoarser, so full of love, and Shane’s singing dies out in order to better listen.

“Sov sødt, lille Jumbo og visselul,” Harry sings, “vågn op, søde Jumbo, og se på solen. Vågn op, søde Louis, og kom tilbage.”

_”I love you, Harry Edward Styles,” Louis tells him, confesses in these last moments. “I would have married you the day you kissed me, had you asked. I wanted to ask you to marry me every time you kissed me, every time you serenaded me with your stupid lullaby I don’t understand a word of, and I wanted to marry you every time you told me you loved me. You have given my life such joy, and I am so thankful.”_

_It seems to get so much darker, so quickly, despite the flames being so bright. They should have lit up the world._

_He holds onto Harry a bit more._

_“I have never known a world without Harry Styles,” he whispers, “I never want to experience a world that doesn’t hold you in it, darling. Everything that I am, everything that I had hoped I would be, everything I wanted to be, it was all revolving around you. Never did I think you wouldn’t be by my side, Harry.”_

_He peppers Harry’s hair with kisses, wishes he had enough air to scream at Harry, to wake up, wake up, wake up, he just wants to see Harry’s smile once more._

_“I have seen thousands of sunrises, Harry,” he whispers, “I will only ever see sunrises with you by my side. Etched in stone, are our love, and so is this vow.”_

He’s not really sure what’s happening, but there’s a little light on the ground, first starting in the shape of a little heart, that’s growing, and growing, and growing, and growing.

The light isn’t blinding, it’s comfortable, it’s soothing, soft. It’s what he imagines love would be like, if it could be embodied by a light.

Soft, warm, soothing.

Harry stands frozen behind them, and when they look back, he looks more like the ghost he is than he ever did. Even when he got angry, even when he seemed to want to threaten them with death.

Here, without the flames, he looks pale, shallow. He looks like a ghost, so close to disappearing, like dew from the morning light.

He looks so unsure, so close to his breaking point, but Shane would bet everything he owned that this light is something he’s never seen before.

It looks good, it looks like someone who’s coming home.

“Don’t worry,” Ryan tries to comfort him, and Harry nods robotically, like he’s hearing the words, processing them, but not understanding them, not believing them.

Shane is quite proud of Ryan, if he’s being honest. He could have freaked out, not wanted anything to do with any of this. He could have run out the door, and Shane would have had to have followed, and who knows how many years it’d have taken Harry to come up here, and sing his morning lullaby to his love?

Who knows if he’d have disappeared before that happened.

The light pulses, slow at first, and then quicker, quicker, quicker, as it grows taller, and with every flicker, the silhouette of a person can be seen, and Harry takes a sharp breath.

And then the lights die out, and there, in the shadows, is see-through silhouette.

“Louis,” breathes Harry, and he sounds so relieved, so painfully relieved, like he’s borne the weight of the sky, like Atlas before him, and it’s finally being taken off of his shoulders. “You’re here.”

The ghost in the shadows doesn’t react at first, almost like it’s too afraid, and then it comes closer, and closer, and he can hear Harry’s clothes rustle, and his breathing get erratic despite him not needing to breathe, not needing to do anything a human needs to do.

“Harry?”, a soft voice asks, and then the ghost steps into the moonlight from the window, and Harry’s entire face crumbles, and he’s running to the ghost, gets caught by the other’s arms, and burrows close into him.

“Louis, Louis, Louis,” he whispers reverently, and Shane turns away, turns to Ryan, motions for them to move out of the room.

This is not something meant for them to see.

This is for those two. And only them.

When they come downstairs again, the fire has died out, and in it’s place is only the soot marks of Louis and Harry’s bodies, and from the oven, and the two stones.

They come down, hand in hand, and now that they’ve gotten their small lamps up and running, it’s easier to see them both. Together they look as young as Harry did on his own, but they look lighter, they don’t seem as tormented, as haunted as Harry did.

Louis has what looks like soft hair, and sparkling eyes, and he looks at Harry like he’s his entire world.

From what they’ve heard, that’s exactly what Harry is to Louis. His world, his reason to live. It’s dramatic, it’s beautiful.

“Thank you,” he says, breaks the silence, “thank you for singing for me. For making sure Harry didn’t disappear too.”

They didn’t do much, and he thinks Louis knows that, with the way he doesn’t exactly look at them, but rather keeps his eyes on Harry. He thinks that even if they’d done everything, Louis’ focus would still be Harry, so maybe that’s not a fair way to look at it.

They nod in concession, accepting the gratitude, but nothing else.

Harry’s the one who held on even after Louis hadn’t come back with him. Harry’s the one who knew how to wake Louis. Harry’s the one who knows how they can pass on. Harry’s the one who did it all.

“Are you ready to move on?”, Ryan asks them, looking a little unsure they won’t kill him at the mere suggestion.

Louis looks down at their joined hands, looking a bit apologetic. “I think it was my fault we got caught in this limbo, so yes, I’m ready.”

Harry shakes his head. “It’s not your fault, Louis, you’re the one who’s helping us get away.”

Louis smiles fondly at him. “You’re a sap.”

“Says you, who died to be with me.”

“You promised you wouldn’t use that against me!”

“And then you went and disappeared on me!”

That seems to sober Louis, and his eyes get huge and sad, bottom lip sticking out in a pout that almost makes Shane wanna cry.

“I’m really sorry,” he whispers, sounding like he wants nothing more than for Harry to understand, but getting if he doesn’t, “I never wanted to leave you alone. I always want to be with you, beside you.”

It’s soft and pure, and it’s another moment that Ryan and Shane has no rights to overhear.

This is for them only.

Harry shakes his head. “Don’t apologise, please don’t. We only figured out the key, you left behind, when you disappeared. Who knows how long we’d have been here, if we weren’t so dramatic?”

Louis smiles a bit shakily, mouths his love for Harry, and Harry smiles brightly. Like Shane never thought he ever would.

“Let’s get our stones, love,” Louis whispers, “let’s go see the sun rise.”

_They stand side by side, looking to East._

_They stand hand in hand, like they never could have before._

_And as the sun rises, it darkens for them, their stones pulsing steadily in their hands._

_“Harry,” Louis whispers, just before getting sucked in by the darkness, “I love you.”_

_There’s no answer for a bit, and he wants to weep. Again, on the brink of death, of moving on, did he not get to hear it back._

_And then specks of light appear once more, and Louis smiles, breathes easily, as a new world, a garden, a waterfall, a sun, a new life unfolds in front of him._

_“I love you, Louis,” Harry whispers to him, and reaches his hand out to Louis._

_He walks over the threshold._

Shane wakes up with what feels like a massive hangover, a headache that feels like it would split his head apart.

Ryan’s sitting beside him, head between his knees, a water bottle between his hands.

“Good morning,” he sighs, trying to get himself to move. “What the hell did we do last night?”

Ryan shakes his head very, very carefully. “I have no fucking idea. Must have been some party though, because all the camera men woke up with hangovers too.”

Shane rubs his eyes, in hopes of getting just a glimpse of what happened.

“Bummer that we can’t remember if we saw any ghosts.”, Ryan sighs, sounding as dejected as ever.

Shane laughs good naturedly. “You say that every time, and every time it’s because we’ve not even been close to seeing a ghost.”

Ryan shakes his head again, looking very pensieve. “I don’t know. I thought this one would be different.”

“You say that every time.”

“Alright, so after coming home, reviewing the tapes, we can conclude that what happened to everyone else going there-”

”Stop trying to excuse the fact that we partied the night away. There’s no mystery, we’re just all lightweights and forgot to do our job.”

“What my esteemed colleague is trying to say, is that we must have seen something in the night that got us so excited, that we celebrated with lots, and lots of alcohol.”

”And unfortunately that means, that whatever we were celebrating, did not get on tape. And we have no way of knowing what happened because every single camera, every single mic, every single phone, was drained of power.”

“Could be a ghost, could be us forgetting to plug the tech in.”

”Can I say it this time?”

“No, you cannot.”

”Oh, come on, Ryan, just once. I’ll be really good at it.”

“Together?”

”_Fine_, together.”

The case of the Styles Bakery in Doncaster is, as of now, still _unsolved_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading the whole thing!!
> 
> There's a


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